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Another Happy Future
A special chapter included at the end of Volume 8 that tells about Nozomi's past and why she visits and eventually comes to live at the Maple House. The chapter begins with a young Nozomi wetting herself in fear as she gets yelled at by her father, narrating how she was always afraid of her father who was angry at her all the time, and how he always got even angrier at her for being too cowardly. After this, her narrative returns to the present, where he asks her about her studies, telling her that she should give up on going to university if she can't get into a good one. Nozomi can do nothing but nod, never having opposed him since she was a child. As she takes a bath, the story goes back 10 years into the past, when her mother was a famous opera singer, Nozomi always looked up to her and wanted to become like her. However, her mother committed suicide later for a reason unknown to Nozomi. To cope with the sadness, the young Nozomi listened to her mother's records daily, but one day, her father angrily told her that he would never forgive her if she listened to them again. When Nozomi tries to object, he snaps and starts to beat her, leaving her crying on the floor as she apologizes repeatedly and promises never to oppose him again. Afterwards, she tries to cheer him up on his birthday by recording a cassette tape where she sings "Happy Birthday" and says that her dream is to become an opera singer and to make him happy again by inviting him to her first concert. But upon seeing it, he breaks it and tells her to never sing again. After being forbidden to sing, she instead starts to sing in secret behind a nearby mountain, where a young Kaede and her puppy secretly listen to her. The story returns to the present after this, where a teacher tells Nozomi that her grades are great enough to go to most universities, but also that one usually needs to take special courses in order to pass the entrance exams for a music school. Having heard this, the depressed Nozomi decides to go to the mountain, but when she gets there, she sees that it has been turned into a construction site for a resort condominium. Having lost her only place to sing, she is about to fall into despair, but as she walks home, her old classmate, Yuka, greets her and aks why she looks so sad. After Nozomi tells her about not having a place to sing, Yuka tells her that she can come over and practice at the Maple House whenever she wants. The seasons pass as Nozomi studies and teaches the others at the Maple Inn how to sing, and as winter arrives, Yuka and the others discuss her entrance exams, which are coming up the next day. As Nozomi gets ready to leave, Kouta and the others walk her to the entrance and tell her that they're rooting for her. However, as soon as she comes home, her father is standing at the entrance, holding the exam admission slip for the music school she's been trying to get into. He demands that she stay at home the following day, but just as Nozomi is about to obey him, she remembers Kouta, Yuka and the others at the Maple House cheering her on, and finally works up the courage to stand up against her father, telling him to return her admission slip and that she's going to live her own life from now on. Unexpectedly, he allows her to do as she wants, but on one condition. As she leaves the following morning, the narrative switches from Nozomi's to her father's perspective, where he confesses that he actually wanted her to become a singer, but he didn't want her to die like her mother did. He reveals that her late mother had a throat defect called "Soprano Dramatico", which gave her an amazing singing voice, but also made her throat very weak, which led to her committing suicide after losing her voice. Therefore, once he learned that Nozomi had inherited Soprano Dramatico, he tried to make her give up on singing, but when he saw her work up the courage to stand up against him for the first time, he realized that there was no stopping her blood and let her become a singer. However, there is a condition, in which he would be invited to her first concert, so that she could make him happy again. As we see him holding a repaired cassette tape, Nozomi is at the exams, no longer afraid of anything. 'Trivia' *Though this special chapter shows and references events from across the series' timeline, it does not follow from or continue into any one chapter or story arc. Though firmly within Elfen Lied continuity, as a narrative it stands apart within the larger story. It's present-day events seem to occur during the six-month timeskip after the events involving Mariko. It is not always included in scanlations of Elfen Lied.